Choice agenda for the Lib Dems

One can only marvel at the delusional nature of the Liberal Democrat president, Tim Farron, in trumpeting his party's achievements while in government (We must stop apologising, 9 March). It's true that Lib Dem influence has tinkered in the margins of some Tory policies but overall the effect of Farron's party in coalition has been to enable the passing of the most damaging package of measures in post-war UK political history. I wonder how loudly Farron would boast of Lib Dem achievements to a family that are losing disability living allowance, to cancer sufferers who lose benefit because they dare live too long or to the many ordinary families whose incomes are being drastically reduced while the top 1% continue to thrive.

Liberal Democrat collusion has helped oversee the likely dismantling of the NHS, huge increases in tuition fees, and the introduction of a punitive and stigmatising benefits system. Farron claims that the Lib Dems acquire and retain a conscience, but surely if that were true they would not have exhibited such a Faustian willingness to sell their soul for a fleeting share of power.Tim MatthewsLuton, Bedfordshire

• As a troubled Lib Dem supporter, I would love to be able to believe Tim Farron's reassurances as to the good being done by the party in coalition. Unfortunately, he wrecks his own argument in a single sentence: "For one, it would never have happened had Guardian readers held their nerve and voted Lib Dem to give us a majority in 2010." I hate to break it to Mr Farron, but there simply are not enough of us to do that. This is a detachment from electoral reality at least on the level of Ron Paul. I really hope that the rest of the party leadership are more realistic than this. John DallmanCambridge

• Never mind the principles, just look at our tweaking, seems to be the enfeebled Nick Clegg response to those in the Liberal Democrats who seek to abandon the health bill. Your editorial (The health bill: Decision time for Lib Dems, 9 March) is spot on. Weasel words leave the privatising tendency largely untouched while creating no sense of overall direction. This chimes with Vince Cable's critique this week on the government's lack of an overall plan for the economy. Opposition to Labour's dalliance with the NHS, including the PFI adventure, might be said to have begun at Kidderminster hospital where a march of 10,000 people led to the election of our independent MP, Richard Taylor. After 25 years as a consultant clinical psychologist at the hospital, I was proud to stand alongside Dr Taylor and others speaking out at my retirement do this week. The message from Kidderminster remains defiant and undiminished.

The "new" NHS champions the choice agenda. The choice for Liberal Democrats this weekend should be a resounding no. Simon O'LoughlinClinical psychologist, Kidderminsterhospital

• Oh, Shirley, what have you done (The NHS bill is the Lib Dems' Iraq – it will define this party, 9 March)? I thought you agreed with those of us for whom the preservation of the NHS is a solid red line. Yesterday, in voting for hospitals to be permitted to sell half their (our) beds to medi-business, you made clear that for you the NHS line is a rather less substantial line to be crossed whenever politically expeditious. Yet again, parliamentary votes demonstrate that when it comes to the crunch, the Lib Dems in coalition have some success in the skirmishes but the Tories win the battles.

Should the Lib Dem conference fail to throw out the NHS bill this weekend, the party will be in need of some pretty strong medicine itself to survive the coalition.Les FarrisSouth Petherton, Somerset

• If, as Polly Toynbee suggests, the NHS bill will do for the Lib Dems what Iraq did for Labour, can we expect to see them elected with a whopping majority in 2015?Mike GoganStorridge, Worcestershire

• No, Polly: the Lib Dems are already defined by the education fees betrayal. Anything else seems to confirm our suspicions. And let us not forget, in election terms: "It was the Guardian what done it!"Rev Tony BellChesterfield, Derbyshire

• Judith Jolly (Letters, 9 March) claims that insisting new NHS providers will only be able to refuse patients on clinical grounds "will effectively outlaw cherrypicking". She just doesn't get it. Clinical grounds can always be used to cherrypick and are so used today by independent sector treatment centres. If a provider is faced with a choice between offering, say, a hip replacement to an otherwise fit patient and one with multiple co-pathologies, it doesn't take a genius to work out which will be selected. As an elderly neighbour of mine told me: "I'm far too ill to have my hip replacement in our local ISTC." With a Lib Dem peer showing such a lack of basic understanding of the issues, one can only agree with Evan Harris that the whole bill should be scrapped. The "safeguards" secured by the Lib Dems in the Lords are worthless.Robert ShearerWinsham, Somerset